Wednesday round-up

Posted Wed, June 27th, 2012 10:31 am by Conor McEvily

While anticipation continues to build for tomorrow’s expected ruling on the challenges to the Affordable Care Act, the flurry of opinions and orders released by the Court on Monday also continues to provide ample material for those covering and commenting on the Court.

Monday’s opinion in Arizona v. United States – in which the Court struck down three of the four provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, S.B. 1070, but allowed the fourth, so-called “show me your papers” provision to go into effect – generated much of yesterday’s press. Continuing coverage of the case comes from The New York Times, the Associated Press, Time, and PBS (via the Blog of the Legal Times (video)). Commentators also weighed in on the case. At this blog’s online symposium on the Arizona decision,Andrew Pincus characterized the decision as a win for the federal government and the Solicitor General, while other commentary comes from Eric Posner at Slate, Margaret Hu at ACSblog, and Keiron Jackman at APLEblog.com. In particular, Justice Scalia’s dissent in the case drew commentary from Walter Dellinger at Slate, Nan Aron at the Huffington Post, Jeremy Leaming of ACSblog, and Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker’s “Daily Comment” blog.

Also garnering more coverage yesterday was the Court’s opinion in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, in which the Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits mandatory sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders. The New York Times, the Associated Press (via The Washington Post), and Reuters provide continuing coverage, while commentary comes from Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic, Douglas A. Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy (here and here), Ilya Shapiro at Cato@Liberty, the editorial board of the Christian Science Monitor, and James Alan Fox at the Boston Globe. At Slate, Judge Richard A. Posner writes that although he “doesn’t object to the result . . . the case is a good illustration of how unmoored constitutional law has become.”

Monday’s summary reversal in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, in which the Court held that “there can be no serious doubt” that its 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FECrenders unconstitutional a Montana law prohibiting corporations from state political expenditures, also continues to generate commentary. Trevor Burrus at Cato@Liberty, Walter Dellinger at Slate, and Steve Vladeck at PrawfsBlawg all comment on the per curiam opinion, while Brian Wolfman at Public Citizen’s Consumer Law & Policy Blog examines ways “to amend the Constitution to overrule Citizens United” – a topic that Sam Favate also discusses at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

Finally, the anticipation of Thursday’s expected decision in the cases challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues apace. At this blog, Lyle Denniston summarizes the issues before the Court and examines the possible outcomes; other coverage comes from Joan Biskupic at Reuters and Robert Barnes of The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Jonathan H. Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy and Charles Lane at the Washington Post both examine the academic response to the challenges to the ACA, while Laurence Tribe predicts that the Court will uphold the ACA (and also discusses the Court’s opinion in Arizona) in an appearance on MSNBC (video).

At this blog, Lyle Denniston profiles Christine Fallon, the Court’s Reporter of Decisions.

Joe Palazzolo of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog discusses a recent study that analyzed “video footage of each [J]ustice to see how their facial muscles moved.”

Stephanie Gaskell of Politico previews one of the other merits cases that the Court is likely to decide tomorrow: United States v. Alvarez, which presents the question whether the Stolen Valor Act – which makes it a crime to falsely represent that you have received military honors – violates the First Amendment.

The blog 92Y (video) has posted footage of Justice Breyer’s discussion of the judicial decision making process from earlier this Term.

Merits Case Pages and Archives

On Monday, the justices met for their September 25 conference. The justices removed Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project and Trump v. Hawaii from the court's October sitting. We expect orders from this conference on Thursday. The October 2017 term will begin on Monday, October 2. The calendar for the October sitting is available on the court's website.

Major Cases

Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project(1) Whether respondents’ challenge to the temporary suspension of entry of aliens abroad under Section 2(c) of Executive Order No. 13,780 is justiciable; (2) whether Section 2(c)’s temporary suspension of entry violates the Establishment Clause; (3) whether the global injunction, which rests on alleged injury to a single individual plaintiff, is impermissibly overbroad; and (4) whether the challenges to Section 2(c) became moot on June 14, 2017.

Gill v. Whitford(1) Whether the district court violated Vieth v. Jubelirer when it held that it had the authority to entertain a statewide challenge to Wisconsin’s redistricting plan, instead of requiring a district-by-district analysis; (2) whether the district court violated Vieth when it held that Wisconsin’s redistricting plan was an impermissible partisan gerrymander, even though it was undisputed that the plan complies with traditional redistricting principles; (3) whether the district court violated Vieth by adopting a watered-down version of the partisan-gerrymandering test employed by the plurality in Davis v. Bandemer; (4) whether the defendants are entitled, at a minimum, to present additional evidence showing that they would have prevailed under the district court’s test, which the court announced only after the record had closed; and (5) whether partisan-gerrymandering claims are justiciable.

Carpenter v. United StatesWhether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cellphone records revealing the location and movements of a cellphone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment.

Conference of September 25, 2017

Collins v. Virginia Whether the Fourth Amendment's automobile exception permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter private property, approach a house and search a vehicle parked a few feet from the house.

Butka v. Sessions Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit erred in this case by holding that it had no jurisdiction to review the denial of a motion to reopen by the Board of Immigration Appeals, where the review sought was limited to assessing the legal framework upon which the sua sponte request was made.

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra Whether the free speech clause or the free exercise clause of the First Amendment prohibits California from compelling licensed pro-life centers to post information on how to obtain a state-funded abortion and from compelling unlicensed pro-life centers to disseminate a disclaimer to clients on site and in any print and digital advertising.

On August 16, Judge Jon Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit gave a lecture, “The Supreme Court — Then and Now,” in which he compared the Supreme Court today to the court in October Term 1957, when Newman served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren.